


It Happens Like This

by punk_femme



Category: Kagerou Project, Mekakucity Actors
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Kind of vague discussion of suicide attempts/suicidal ideation, M/M, Sibling relationships (CREEPS DON'T INTERACT), a lil shintaro & ayano, but its like you know canon-typical angst, thinking about the room canon leaves for all sorts of timelines/routes before summertime record etc.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 09:48:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20872208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punk_femme/pseuds/punk_femme
Summary: Shintaro was looking at Haruka, but it was all wrong.





	It Happens Like This

**Author's Note:**

  * For [my bro Avery](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=my+bro+Avery).

> So I was real into KagePro in like 3-4 years ago, and have recently decided to get back into it as someone older, happier, more comfortable with myself, etc. see how different it felt when I wasn't focused so much on pain, you know? Then, of course, I write something like this. But, hey! It's got a happy ending? Looking at the Routes page on the wiki, I figure there's some constants necessary in every timeline, specifically these were the notes I slapped onto my writing doc about it  
">azamis whole mess  
>marry and shion die, marry gets combining eyes  
>kido seto kano and momos respective deaths and eyes (unclear but probably same deaths every time)  
>kido seto and kano are adopted by the tateyamas and become the mekakushi dan w/ ayano  
>b4 or after their mom or both parents deaths (changes) shounen brave and imagination forest happen  
>something leads to haruka, ayano, and takanes deaths and shintaro becoming a shut in"
> 
> bonus here are notes I typed up as an outline for this, but specifically the ones I feel are worth including that aren't just describing the plot of this fake route:  
>haruka has already met takane the same way as in route 2 (their deaths remain the same as well), and having just rediscovered how it feels to want to Live is upset to learn how badly shintaro didnt want to live.  
>ayano's life is essentially the same as route 2 as well, rendering her unable to live with her other siblings anymore though she still thinks of what she is doing as trying to save/protect them  
>the dan begins operation having learned from marry whats going on. konoha, at this point, lives w/ hiyoris family? and is told he is her cousin. hibiya doesnt hate konoha in this timeline, though he gives hibiya and hiyori both a weird vibe. hiyori and hibiya get along better.   
>kido and seto meet momo together while looking for the just-mysteriously-disappeared hibiya and hiyori  
>the question of "is konoha technically the same person as haruka if he has no memory of being haruka?" how would this affect what im pretty sure happens at the end of it all with haruka living in konohas body?

In another time, it happens like this.

Not long before he was supposed to enter his second year of high school, Shintaro Kisaragi tries and fails to die. His sister, the only person he really cares about, makes sure he gets to the hospital. She cries for him. She stays by his side as long as she can, she promises she'll see him again as soon as she can. She doesn't mention auditions or singing or performing or a manager. She never does.

Shintaro hates himself. He hates that he made her cry, that he told her to fuck off because she was trying to help, and that he didn't respond when she said "I'll see you soon, so look forward to it, okay? I'll be back!". That he turned his head away when she hovered, waiting for a response. He hates that he couldn't even die, and that he thinks some part of him is relieved to be alive.

His roommate in the hospital, Haruka, is too good to be stuck with someone like him. Haruka's sick, he says. Doesn't know when he'll be discharged. Shintaro's not an idiot, and it's clear to him there's something more to Haruka's story but he won't pry. Haruka hasn't even asked why Shintaro was here, though he'd seemed at first like he'd be nosier. All he'd done was look at Shintaro's bandages and tired eyes and ask how he felt. 

That was all.

The two of them ended up talking a lot - for all that Shintaro felt Haruka was too good, he was easy to get along with and didn't seem hurt when Shintaro was too sharp. He was afraid he was falling in love with Haruka.

Eventually Shintaro was discharged from the hospital. Haruka had inspired him to try being more honest to himself, more hopeful, try to give things a chance. So he did. He enrolled in the next semester of school. He promised Momo he'd talk to her more, go out with her more. His sister seemed happy. Haruka seemed happy to hear it, too. It felt nice.

First day of school, he sat near the window. He was half-hoping the seat next to him would remain empty, but a girl with a red scarf came in just before class started. She didn't seem too bad, really, with her kinda ditsy personality reminding him of Momo.

They started to talk more, though he was still much closer with Haruka. Her name was Ayano and she desperately needed to raise her grades. He visited Haruka a few times, both of them avoiding the topic of how long he would be in the hospital. He found out Ayano had four younger siblings, two sisters and two brothers, and she loved them more than anything else in the world. He thought of Momo, and said he understood.

In late December, Shintaro went to visit Haruka and instead was met with "Sorry, but there's no patient by that name in our system". He found out Haruka had died less than a week ago, only three days away from turning 18. 

Why had Shintaro bothered to have hope in the world?

Why hadn't Haruka told him how sick he was?

Was this why Haruka had never wanted to talk about leaving the hospital?

He went to school the next day, because Momo as good as forced him to. Ayano wasn't there, but there was a paper crane in his locker. It felt like anything but luck. It told him, in it's silent words, that Ayano was dropping out for her siblings' sake. The last string of hope Shintaro had snapped, thread by thread by thread. 

He didn't go back to school after that.

The next year a girl appears in Shintaro's computer, and he's jaded and tired enough he doesn't think too hard about it when she promises she's not just an AI. He guessed he could call her a friend, if he had to. 

He hasn't said more than two words to Momo in a month.

After another year of being a reclusive shut-in, Momo calls him. She hadn't called since he dropped out of school, and so he knew instantly that something was wrong. She was panicking, saying something about danger and please come to the park and _I don't know where they are_! It was the first time he'd gone past his own driveway in two years.

He found her standing by a swing set. She was crying, and there were two other teenagers next to her who looked vaguely familiar. The one with the purple hoodie had their hand on Momo's shoulder, and the tall green one looked up as Shintaro approached. Ene, in his phone, sounded surprised, but wouldn't answer Shintaro when he asked under his breath if she knew them.

They told him their names were Kido and Seto and they were working with Momo to try and find two children she'd met earlier today. Children they knew, but they didn't specify how. Shintaro realized these were two of Ayano's siblings. He made the mistake of asking how Ayano was, and their faces shuttered. They answered noncommittally, and Kido didn't speak to him again. 

Seto and Momo together explained to him where the kids had last been seen, and that was how he found himself roped into finding two junior high kids he'd never met. They split up - Shintaro and Momo went together, and Seto set off with Kido after the girls exchanged numbers so they could all contact each other. Momo used Shintaro's phone for it, Ene and all.

It was after that that they ran into another one of Ayano's siblings. It was a cat-eyed brat that had made fun of Shintaro two years ago, but his face was cold. There was a streak of blood on his cheek and a splatter on his shirt, and Shintaro turned to ice. The man next to him was faced away, appearing to search for something in the opposite direction. He looked like a cosplayer with his pure white hair, awfully pale skin and mostly white clothing.

"You're Ayano's brother," Shintaro said to the one he recognized, and somehow those cat eyes seemed to stab through Shintaro like butchers knives. Who's blood was that on his shirt?

The brother was about to respond when the pale man reacted to Shintaro's voice and turned towards them. Shintaro noticed two things immediately, but clearly his eyes were playing tricks on him. This couldn't be reality.

FIrst, the pale man was covered in blood. Well, not covered, but there was a bold stain down the front of his shirt, and his right hand which hadn't been visible to the Kisaragi siblings before was bloody too. As if the sight of Ayano's brother hadn't been bad enough, right?

But more importantly, Shintaro could see his face. He knew this fucking face, though the sleepy eyes were bright pink now and the eyelashes were as white as the paper crane Ayano left in his locker and there was a neon mark under his eye where Shintaro expected to see a beauty mark. 

Shintaro was looking at Haruka, but it was all wrong.

Everything got worse from there. This guy who looked Haruka didn't recognize Shintaro, but Shintaro, Ene, and Momo all sure as all recognized him. Ayano's brother - Shikano*? no, not quite it - was still glaring at them, but Shintaro was more distracted by the fact that the guy he maybe-still-had-a-crush-on that died two years ago was standing right before him but all wrong.

And then they heard a gunshot. Then another one. All four of them and Ene went silent, their eyes suddenly wide. A third gunshot. None of them were hurt. It hadn't been here. A fourth. But it was close.

"Kido and Seto," Momo gasped, and Ayano's brother's eyes snapped back to her in a heartbeat. Konoha, he said, and the pale man with Haruka's face nodded, jumping to a rooftop with inhuman power. Momo turned on her heel and ran back the way they'd came, Shintaro right behind her while the cat eyed brother went in the opposite direction. 

They all ended up in the same place, just moments that felt like hours later.

Kido and Seto were dead on the concrete, along with a boy he'd never seen, and a girl stood above them. A third child sat on the ground, hands to her face and sobbing. 

"Stop, please.... Give them back..." She cried. A mane of hair covered her like a veil. The black haired girl with bloody hands just looked at her in disdain. Then, her eyes lifted to Shintaro and Momo. There was a gun in her hand. Shintaro didn't think he liked the conclusion he was starting to draw about the kids they'd been looking for. 

The pale man who couldn't be Haruka stood in front of the Kisaragi siblings. Ayano's brother called him Konoha, said stop, just fucking leave, but Konoha didn't move. He didn't move even when another gunshot rang out and his own blood dripped from his stomach to the ground. Shintaro thinks his sister screamed. The little girl didn't take her eyes off Konoha as she killed Ayano's brother next. 

Momo ran forward as if to attack, ignoring Shintaro's yell, wrenching her arm out of his grip when he tried to reach for her and he watched her fall, too. The gun in the girl's hand looked wrong when she pointed it back at Konoha. Shintaro was frozen. He stared at Momo as she bled out onto the cement. Ene was going to wake him up with some stupid, obnoxious air horn any moment now.

The girl with long hair was still crying on the ground.

Then, he was taking a bullet for the ghost of his first real crush. Something about seeing all these people die, watching his sister bleed out onto the ground, hearing Ene's screams even though his earbuds were still plugged in where the phone lay next to Momo, it was too much. Shintaro saw the girls finger twitch on the trigger and he moved. It was that simple. He swore he could see his bedroom, his old classroom, a million other sidewalks and alleys and buildings in this very town all splattered in blood. A girl wailed, somewhere.

He didn't even see the face that looked so much Haruka's again, he fell so quickly.

In another time, it happens like this.

Not long after he would've graduated from high school, Shintaro Kisaragi is sick to death of dying. A girl he'd never known, a Medusa he'd met a thousand times, makes sure he stays alive. She'd cried for him. His sister stays by his side, and they all promise they'll see each other again, soon. They don't talk about the heat or snakes or red eyes or hurting. Not right now.

Shintaro's happier, now. He apologizes for making his sister cry so much, for letting her suffer on her own for so long, and he promises to do better even when she tells him "I'm just glad to have you back, idiot!" He laughs, returning the desperate hug she gives him as his response. He's finally glad that none of them could ever stay dead, and he knows he has time to work on the part of him that still wants to be gone.

His now-boyfriend, Konoha, is too good to be stuck with someone like him, but he thinks that might just be okay. Haruka doesn't exist anymore, Konoha says. Parts of who he was before are still there, but he likes being Konoha better. Shintaro's not an idiot, and it's clear to him that Konoha wishes he remembered more, but they're all working on building happier memories together. They talk about how they met, and how their short lives differed between timelines, and when Shintaro first found him again he was almost frustrated that Konoha still wasn't nosy. All he'd done was look at Shintaro's shaking hands and tired eyes and tell him they had _friends_ now, both of them.

That was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> *Shintaro thinking Kano's name might be Shikano = the 鹿 in Kano's name appears to be the same as shika (deer) and, well, it's almost the right name. Shintaro just needs to think a little harder about that one, or get better at remembering names perhaps?
> 
> I hope this wasn't, like, too necessarily depressing? I was trying to keep consistent with canon while leaving myself room to leave a more hopeful ending because, ultimately, that idea of hope is what I love most about Kagepro.


End file.
